Brief: Create an edition of 10 hot dog fold books visually/contextually based upon your given topic. The books will either by A4 or A3, folding down to A6 or A5. They will be sold at the 14th International Contemporary Artist's Book Fair.
Previously I had looked at the word three in terms of photography, looking at sets of three around the college. I then focused in on a logic, this being three sets of lights, however, I found this didn't work too well in my photography. So I thought about different ideas:
Ideas:
- Three in nursery rhymes (three little pigs, three blind mice, three witches, goldilocks and the three bears, three wishes)
- Three in song lyrics
- Three is the magic number
- Three in a pack of cards
- Three sayings 'third time lucky', 'threes a crowd', 'threes a charm'
- Facts about three
- Three in religion, such as christianity
- Rock, paper, scissors
Songs with the word three in them:
3 am - Busted
3 am - Eminem
Three little birds - Bob Marley
3 - Britney Spears
Two out of three aint bad - Meatloaf
Chasing cars 'Those three words are said too much' - Snow Patrol
3 R's - Jack Johnson
Three times a lady - Lionel Richie
1.2.3.4 - Feist
1.2.3.4 - Plain White T's
Once around the sun 'Three hundred sixty five days of a broken heart' - Caprice
Three little words - Frankmusik
Three - Massive attack
These three words - Stevie Wonder
Calle Oche 'Uno dos tres' - Pitbull
Pretty fly (for a white guy) 'Uno dos tres' - Offspring
Three is a magic number - School House Rock
Thr33 ringz - T.Pain
Ooopsy Daisy 'They say three times a lady, I say three times your crazy' - Chipmunk
My final book will be a hot dog fold. The size and the amount of pages limits my design so I need to keep this in mind while creating design ideas.
Design Ideas
This is my design idea for the initial crit; I have created images through the use of only text and colour. The images relate to the lyrics of the songs.
Alternative Layout
I didn't like the inside of the book, so after the comments I recieved in our crit, I decided to re-arrange a few of the pages and add a new double page of the roman numerals. I think this works far better with all pages having the same theme, however, I still need to play around with what should go on what page and in what order.
New Design Idea
The feedback I received in both my first and second crit was positive, yet I was still feeling unsure about my idea for the book, especially seeing as I thought one of my initial ideas could possibly work better, and allow me to include illustration, instead of the book being all text.
I noticed that three seems to be a significant number in literature, particularly for children, so I thought I could write a verse containing the three characters, and place this next to a hand drawn illustration.
Ideas
- 10 books of same layout/style but each containing a different nursery rhyme
- 10 books, all the same content, on the same stock for consistency
- 10 books, all the same content, containing a few examples of the nursery rhymes, but printed on different stocks
- 10 books, all the same design, but with varying colour schemes
- 10 books, all the same content on the small pages, but each one with a different enlarged nursery rhyme poster inside
Three is an important number in children's literature, the characters have three wishes in fairytales and there are usually three conflicts the hero will face before their triumph.
Possible page layout combination
- 8 pages or 4 double page spreads & 1 poster
- 16 pages or 8 double page spreads
- 2 sets of four pages & 1 poster
- 4 sets of four pages
As I decided to keep the format A4, I thought the double page spread idea would work the best, to stop there from being too much from going on, and to make sure text would still be readable.
Nursery Rhymes and Fairy Tales
These are examples of stories and rhymes with the significant number three. I will not include all of these ideas in to my book, also I doubt I will include the full stories, as there just isn't enough room because of the limitations of this book being an 8 page hot dog fold. I would rather include a few tales with not much text, than to just focus on one tale throughout the book. This is because the most important feature of this book is recognising that three is important in children's literature, whereas, there are already plenty of books illustrating individual tales.
Illustrations
I experimented with hand drawn illustrations, but I was unhappy with the results, so decided to draw the images on Photo shop with a graphics tablet, inspired my photographs and drawings I found on the internet. [Research]
Type Experiments
I wanted to use a font which looked 'magical' and relevant to the subject matter, but I needed to ensure readability, in case I wanted to use a large amount of text. The font I eventually decided on is called Dolphin, as it contained the features I was looking for, and also I think it appeals to both males and females.
Final Piece
These screenshots show how the layout for the book. There is a front cover and a back, as well as three double page spreads. Inside there is a poster, which follows the same format.
Pages Screenshot
Poster Screenshot
Stock experiments
